


You Can't Put A Price On Tim Riggins

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Friday Night Lights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-02
Updated: 2008-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:23:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1633748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I remember you. Number 33. You've got quick feet. I'm always telling Matthew he needs to pick up his feet."</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Can't Put A Price On Tim Riggins

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my betas -- newgrange, moosesal, and devilc.
> 
> Written for hardlygolden

 

 

Tim's first thought when he saw it...her...was that he probably shouldn't have had that last beer. 

The thing in white walking slowly along the side of Route 8 might've looked less like a ghost if he'd had less to drink, but he didn't think ghosts wore pink slippers and bathrobes with ragged hems. Shit. That was Saracen's grandma out there walking by the side of the road. What the fuck? It had to be midnight or maybe even a little later. She had no business being out there; she was asking to be roadkill. Tim pulled over to the side of the road behind her, put the truck in park and got out.

"Hey, Miz Saracen?" he called. She didn't answer, so he jogged to catch up with her, coming up alongside her just as a pickup blew by, honking.

"Oh, my goodness," she said, putting her hand to her chest. "Did you hear that?"

Tim flipped his middle finger at the truck's taillights, then looked down at her. "Yeah. Um, you really shouldn't be out here. Ma'am."

"Well, you know I don't drive anymore," she said. "Personally, I think it's a little silly, these rules they have, but they didn't ask me. No, sir, they just said, 'Lorraine, it's best if you don't get your license renewed.' Now, in my day, you didn't hardly need a license. If you had a car and money for gas, nobody cared whether you had a license or not. I was driving tractors for my daddy when I was twelve!" 

It was like she'd reached down and picked up the thread of a conversation Tim hadn't been part of. She didn't seem at all surprised to see him, or wonder why they were walking on that narrow grassy stripe between living and leaving a bloodstain on the asphalt for people to put crosses and plastic flowers next to until they were forgotten entirely. She glanced up at him, then put her head down and kept walking, forcing him to catch up. She was pretty quick for an old lady. 

"I need to get my nails done," she said, in a tone that said he was somehow supposed to know that, maybe pull it out of thin air or whatever passed for sensible in her muddled head. "I told Matthew that earlier, but he must have forgotten. He's got a lot on his mind."

Her nails? What, like, her fingernails? In the middle of the night? This must be what brought Saracen to homeroom with dark circles under his eyes sometimes. Tim had heard that Matt's grandma didn't always have both oars in the water, had a short in her circuit board, was missing a few cards in her deck, but it was one thing to hear people talk and a whole 'nother thing to walk beside a little old lady next to a busy highway at midnight and listen to her talk about getting her nails done. In his best use of a metaphor since sophomore English, Tim decided Matt's grandma was one can short of a six-pack, maybe two.

He put his hand on her arm and tugged just firmly enough to get her to stop. Near as he could tell, she'd just keep on walking until somebody stopped her, and he seemed to be the only somebody on the horizon. Three more cars blew by them, leaving behind hot air and exhaust fumes. Standing out here was nuts; now they were both asking to be roadkill. 

Tim looked down at the top of her head and said, "I'll see if I can't get somebody to come to your house, okay? Maybe tomorrow?"

"No, that won't do," she said, shaking her head. "I've got to be...I've got somewhere to be. I've got..."

Her voice died away, and she looked around. While she was quiet, Tim steered her in a half-circle, drawing her back toward his truck. More cars passed, some slowing to look. Great, just what he needed: somebody'd probably already called the cops, letting them know that Tim Riggins was out on Route 8 kidnapping Matt Saracen's senile grandmother.

"I'll take care of it," Tim said, urging her towards the truck. "But first you gotta get home. It's not safe out here."

"I'm perfectly safe, young man. I've lived here my whole life."

"Okay, okay," Tim muttered as he opened the door and boosted her up. "Just go on and get in."

She did as she was told, which put her ahead of most women Tim dealt with on a regular basis. He didn't mind taking her home -- he didn't have anywhere else he had to be. Billy hardly ever beat him home, and it wasn't like Jimmy and Conan would wonder where he'd gone off to.

Matt's grandma stayed quiet on the ride home, looking out the window and sniffling a little now and then. She pulled a Kleenex from her sleeve and wiped it under her nose, then tucked it back. Tim couldn't think of anything to say, so he didn't say anything. He measured the distance -- 2.8 miles. She'd walked almost three miles in her bedroom slippers along a narrow glass-strewn shoulder. How'd he know about the glass? He'd been one of the ones tossing beer bottles at sixty miles an hour, just for the pleasure of watching them smack the asphalt. A bottle at that speed, hitting that hard a surface, looked like a rock thrown in a lake. Shattered glass made a wave, a ripple on the surface. Pretty, when you were drunk and wanted a little noise and destruction; ugly to think about what it could do to an old woman's tender feet. 

The door to Saracen's house stood wide open, a little rectangle of light blazing out in the dark neighborhood. Looked like everybody else on her street had already turned in or they'd probably have noticed that open door.

"Won't you come in?" she asked as she wrestled with the passenger side door handle. He told her to wait a minute, then went around to open the door for her. 

"Where's Matt?" he asked as he guided her toward the steps. She felt like a bird under his hand, all bones and shivers. At the front door, she turned to him. "Hmm, I'm not sure. School? Or practice, maybe. I bet that's it. I bet he's at practice."

"It's after midnight," Tim said, then wished he hadn't. Her face clouded over, all the light leaving her face.

"Oh," she said. "I get confused sometimes."

He wished he knew better words, something to say that would make it okay that she went out wandering in her robe in the middle of the night, but he couldn't find anything to say that sounded right even in his head, let alone out loud, so he just held the door for her and motioned her in.

She stood for a minute in the doorway looking at the television, tuned to David Letterman. "Well, look at that. It must be late. Should you be out this late?"

Tim tried to think of the last time anyone had put a curfew on him. 'Never' came to mind. "I'm gonna try to find Matt."

When he passed her, she took his hand. Her hand was like ice, cold little bird claws sinking into his skin. He sucked in a breath. This...she...was way far outside what he knew. He looked around the empty little house. The open door had let chilly air wind its way deep inside, and despite the light and the noise from the television, it felt really...lonely. Shit, shit, shit. Okay, think. What would Coach do? He took her hand and tucked it into her robe pocket. 

"Here, you sit down, and I'll go, um, find something warmer for you to put on." He could see a blanket folded at the bottom of her bed. That ought to work.

"You're Matthew's friend, right?" she called out as he stepped into the bedroom. "I remember you. Number 33. You've got quick feet. I'm always telling Matthew he needs to pick up his feet."

"Yeah, thanks," Tim said, coming back with an old quilt. "I'm Tim Riggins."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Tim," she said as she plopped down in a rocking chair in the living room and nudged it, settling into an easy rhythm. "I guess you'd better call me Lorraine since you've seen me in my night clothes." She sat and rocked for a minute or two, then said, "You're a nice young man, I can tell. I don't think Maisy Kellogg knows what she's talking about."

Maisy Kellogg was a vicious old bitch with a granddaughter at Dillon High who took right after her and was ugly to boot, so nothing Lorraine had heard from her would surprise him. Even so, he tried steering her thoughts in a different direction as he tucked the blanket in across her lap.

"You got any soup?" he asked.

"I imagine so," she said. "Are you hungry? I think there's some Danish left from earlier. Cherry, the best kind."

"No thanks, ma'am, I was thinking it's a good way to warm up. You got cold out there."

"Out where?"

Ooookay. How did Seven deal with this...her...all the time? She was wearing him out and he'd only been there five minutes.

"Never mind. I'll be back in a minute."

After he'd set a can of Campbell's chicken noodle in a pot on the stove, he picked up the phone on the counter and called the Alamo Freeze. Matt answered on the third ring.

"Alamo Freeze, Matt speaking."

"Yo, Seven, your grandma got loose," Tim said, soft enough that he didn't think she could hear him from the other room.

"Shit! Where is she? What happened?"

"I found her out on Route 8 in her bathrobe. I brought her home," Tim said. "What're you still doing there?"

"It's a long story. We may never serve chocolate again. Look, can you just, can you stay there until I get home? It shouldn't be too much longer."

"You owe me," Tim said.

"I know, I know. I really appreciate it." Matt went quiet for a minute, then said, "Don't do anything--"

"I'm not going to corrupt your grandma, Saracen," Tim said. "Give me a little credit."

"Sorry," Matt said. "And thanks."

"Just get your ass over here."

The soup had started bubbling around the edges, so Tim took it off the burner and hunted down a bowl and spoon, then found some Zesta crackers and crushed them into little pieces and dropped them in with the soup. Bo had taught Tim that little trick one Saturday when he stayed home sick and Jackie asked Tim to watch him while she went to the store. Bo called the mess of soup and sodden cracker crumbs "Magic Goop" and told Tim it could cure anything from hangnails to croup. Tim didn't have the heart to tell him there wasn't anything magic about something that came from a can and didn't go stale for six years. But it had worked wonders on Bo's upset stomach, so maybe it'd help settle down Miz Saracen. Matt's grandma. _Lorraine_.

He balanced the bowl and spoon in one hand and the rest of the crackers in the other and took it in to her, setting the bowl carefully in her lap.

"My, that smells good, but I can't eat all this," she said, pushing the bowl toward him. "Here, you have some, too."

Easier to do it than argue about it, which was true with every woman Tim had ever met. Soon he found himself stretched out on her couch with a bowl of Magic Goop in his lap, watching some shill on QVC hawking bath and body stuff, gels and massage oils and shit. He hoped it ended before Matt came home and yelled at Tim for exposing his grandmother to massage oil.

"I bet that smells nice," Lorraine said once.

"Yes, ma'am."

"We don't pamper ourselves enough, do we?"

"No, ma'am."

"Seems like when you have money, you don't have the time, and when you have time, you don't have the money," she said, breaking up another cracker into her soup.

Heat from the stove had chased out the chill, and between the beer, the soup, the drone of voices on the television and the hypnotic rhythm of Lorraine's foot pushing the rocking chair back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, Tim found himself dozing off right there on Saracen's couch. He closed his eyes, figuring as long as he could hear that tap of her foot and the creak of the rocker on the floor she wasn't going anywhere, so at first he couldn't tell if he'd dreamed what she said or not.

"You're Walt's boy."

Tim opened his eyes. He turned his head and found her looking at him, her eyes bright: all there, like somebody'd flipped a switch on inside her head. He nodded.

"Walt and my son Henry were friends in high school. Like you and my grandson." Lorraine smiled. "Thick as thieves, they were. Always in trouble. I swear, I found another gray hair every time I got called about something those boys had got up to."

Tim sat up and turned toward her, setting his soup bowl on the floor.

"I haven't seen Walt for awhile. How's he doing?" she asked.

Tim didn't think she'd appreciate hearing that his dad had stolen shit from the school. Or that Walt seemed to make enough to get by, but not enough to send anything to him and Billy. Or that he really only showed up when he needed something or wanted something, and otherwise managed to stay just out of reach. No need to burden her with any of that. But she sat there, waiting and rocking, for him to say something, so he stuck to the facts.

"He left."

"Left Dillon?"

Just the facts. Stick to the facts. "Yeah. He lives in Corpus Christi now. He works at a golf course." 

Lorraine tilted her head. "You know, Henry left, too."

Tim nodded. "He's in Iraq, right? It's not the same thing."

"It's not so different, either," Lorraine said, scraping the last bite of soup out of her bowl. "What I mean is, yes, Henry's in Iraq. He's serving his country, and we're proud as punch." She paused, then said, "But he left us, just the same."

Tim felt his insides twist. Billy getting stuck with him was no picnic; he could admit that. But Billy was older then than Matt was now, and as much trouble as Tim found himself in sometimes, life with him still had to be easier than trying to figure out when Matt's grandma was safe to leave alone, and when she might head out for a cheeseburger at 3 AM. The thought made Tim's stomach churn. 

"It's not easy, but we do all right, don't we?" she asked, reaching over to hand him her bowl.

Tim took it, picked his bowl up off the floor and took both into the kitchen, running water over them in the sink. When he walked back into the living room, she sat looking at him expectantly. He shifted from one foot to the other, almost wishing she'd fog out again so he wouldn't have to talk about it. The silence stretched for a long minute. Finally, she leaned forward in her seat and the rocking stopped.

"You'll do just fine, Tim Riggins," she said, her eyes intent on his. "You're no more like Walt than Matthew is like his daddy. You're good boys."

Tim laughed under his breath and started to say, "You don't know--" but she stopped him.

"I know what I need to know. You're here, aren't you?"

Before he could answer, the doorknob turned and Saracen came in, his white Alamo Freeze uniform covered in whatever chocolate disaster had kept him so late. Even from a distance, he smelled like sweat and spoiled milk. 

Lorraine turned at the noise and barked a laugh at the sight of him. "Matthew, my goodness!"

"Hi, Grandma," Matt said, walking over to kiss her on the cheek. "Sorry I'm late."

"Oh, that's all right," Lorraine said, patting his face. "I've been getting acquainted with Tim, here. Now, what happened to your uniform? You're a sight!"

Matt grimaced and straightened up. "One of the ice cream machines blew up." He threw both hands up in the air. "There was, like, ice cream _everywhere."_

Tim leaned against the door frame to Matt's room and listened as Matt told the whole story. Lorraine soaked it up like a sponge, laughing and clapping her hands. He told the story like he'd been saving it up for her, and maybe he had. Tim didn't think anybody had ever looked at him the way Lorraine looked at Matt, like she had her whole world standing right there covered in grease and chocolate, and she'd never need anything more. She made his chest feel tight.

"You put some Tide on those stains tonight or they'll never come out," Lorraine said when Matt finally wound down.

"I will," he said, then looked over at Tim like he'd forgotten he was still there. 

Okay, time to go. Tim moved toward the door. He felt off balance, like maybe whatever she had was catching.

Matt caught up with him at the door. "Thanks, man. Really."

Tim waved him off.

From her chair, Lorraine piped up, "Tim? You come back sometime, you hear?"

"Yes, ma'am," Tim said, lifting his hand.

She caught his eye. Still all there, still shining bright from somewhere inside.

"Smackdown's on Friday night," she said, the invitation clear in her voice.

Tim smiled at her. "You know that's not real, right? They're just putting on a show."

Lorraine smiled back. "It's real enough for me. I'm not fussy."

As Tim turned to go, the screen door slipping shut behind him, he heard Lorraine say, "When you're done changing, can you take me to my manicure? I hate to keep that nice Vietnamese girl waiting."

Tim went to his truck, started it up without his usual accelerator-throttling rumble, and headed for home. 

Friday nights were usually reserved for pool and beer. Of course, so were Wednesday afternoons, Saturday nights, and sometimes Tuesdays. 

Missing one Friday wouldn't hurt him.

***

The end. 

 


End file.
